Michael Leach posted an IBM press release about their new patent search
engine.  From the 1/2-hour I spent looking at this web site, it has some
features that are far superior to using my local patent library (besides
the fact that is FREE).

Patents contain backwards references to previous technology that may be
relevant to the current patent; the IBM pages let you directly click on
these patent numbers to see these.  Of greater interest is the ability to
look at any later patents that have referenced the one you are looking at.

 There are many other search innovations that make this site of great use
to us hardware hackers.  The direct link to the IBM patent area is:

    http://patent.womplex.ibm.com

Will Dahlgren